From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Fri May 14 2004 - 15:15:46 BST
Hi Mark H,
Continuing with my response to your response to the third Pirsig quote:
> I'll now turn to the third Pirsig quote offered by Platt for my
> analysis and opinion. Here's the quote, as it was offered:
>
> "The idea that biological crimes can be ended by intellect alone,
> that you can talk crime to death, doesn't work. Intellectual patterns
> cannot directly control biological patterns. Only social patterns can
> control biological patterns, and the instrument of conversation
> between society and biology is not words. The instrument of
> conversation between society and biology has always been a policeman
> or a soldier and his gun. In the battle of society against biology,
> the new twentieth-century intellectuals have taken biology's side.
> Society can handle biology alone by means of prisons and guns and
> police and the military. But when the intellectuals in control of
> society take biology's side against society then society is caught in a
> cross fire from which it has no protection." (Lila, 24)
> For the purpose of my analysis, I'll divide Quote 3 into two distinct
> paragraphs, then into distinct ideas, and deal with each separately, in the
> order in which they appear in the text. Here they are:
>
> Pirsig Quote 3A (LILA-HC, Page 300)
> Pirsig Idea Q3A-1) "In the battle of society against biology, the new
> twentieth-century intellectuals have taken biology's side.
>
> msh:
> I'm afraid this idea is too vague for me to know whether or not I
> agree with it. I can understand how someone might take biology's
> side over society, but Who are these new intellectuals, and what are
> their ideas? Pirsig doesn't say. And what is an intellectual
> anyway? Someone with a Ph.D.? Or just anyone who reads and discusses and
> thinks, and tries to provide support for his ideas? Or is it just anyone
> who thinks, which means everyone?
DMB had an excellent answer to your questions in his post of 10 May in
which he referred to chapters 21 and 22 and "lots of names on page 274."
> Pirsig Idea Q3A-2) Society can handle biology alone
> by means of prisons and guns and police and the military.
>
> msh:
> Sure, we can turn society loose on biology; there are countless
> examples of this. Nazi society handled biology, as did Pol Pot and
> his regime. American society has handled its biological "criminals"
> in a variety of ways as well, many of them difficult to square with
> ANY interpretation of the MOQ's moral hierarchy, from killing
> strikers and imprisoning war protesters, to turning dogs loose on
> civil rights workers, to stifling, even outlawing any ideas
> critical of such actions.
Nowhere do I find Pirsig condoning turning "society loose on biology."
> Pirsig is well aware of this, as DMB has
> pointed out in an earlier post, which is why he emphasizes the
> importance of the intellectual level. I paste Pirsig from dmb's
> message:
>
> "A culture that supports the dominance of social values over
> biological values is an absolutely superior culture to one that does
> not, and a culture that supports the dominance of intellectual values over
> social values is absolutely superior to one that does not."
Good point. A society in which the intellectual values of free speech,
trial by jury, protection of property rights and individual freedom is
undoubtedly superior to totalitarian societies ruled by fascists or
communists. America is not without fault in either making laws or
enforcing them. But, if you're suggesting America is no better than Nazi
Germany or Pol Pot's regime as you seem to do by putting them side by side
in a negative context in the same paragraph, I seriously question your
judgment.
> Pirsig Quote 3B (LILA-HC, Page 310)
> Pirsig Idea Q3B-1) "The idea that biological crimes can be ended by
> intellect alone, that you can talk crime to death, doesn't work."
>
> msh:
> Agreed. But who says it does?
A lot of people, including Neville Chamberlain, Jimmy Carter and John
Kerry.
> Pirsig Idea Q3B-2) "Intellectual patterns cannot directly control
> biological patterns. Only social patterns can control biological
> patterns..."
>
> msh:
> Agreed. But,the intellectual level can INDIRECTLY control the
> biological level by influencing actions at the social/cultural level.
Agree.
> Pirsig Idea Q3B-3) "...and the instrument of conversation between
> society and biology is not words. The instrument of conversation
> between society and biology has always been a policeman or a soldier
> and his gun."
>
> msh:
> Agreed. A policeman, a soldier, a general, a president, all of whose
> actions are influenced by the dynamic flow and interaction of ideas.
> Pirsig, again, with thanks to dmb:
>
> "All the laws of history, all the arguments, all the Constitutions
> and the Bills of Rights and Declarations of Independence are nothing
> more than instructions to the military and police. If the military
> and police don't follow these instructions properly they might as
> well have never been written."
Agree.
> CONCLUSION:
>
> Lest we've forgotten, here's Platt's original question to me:
>
> "What I'd like to know is what you think about Pirsig's moral
> structure of reality, especially the moral necessity of social level
> patterns keeping biological patterns under control and killing them,
> like germs, if necessary?"
>
> As we've seen, the answer is that Pirsig's moral structure of reality is
> far more complicated than is suggested by this little question and all it's
> vindictive undertones. Nevertheless, I'm in overall agreement with
> Pirsig's full spectrum of thought on this issue, and the issues addressed
> in my previous quotational analyses, but not with the oversimple,
> out-of-context, and incomplete ideas Platt has offered for our
> entertainment.
Those "oversimple, out-of-context, and incomplete ideas" have prompted
quite a lengthy response from you, suggesting they weren't so butchered
after all. You understood them perfectly well. In any case, thanks for
giving us the opportunity to become familiar with your worldview as it
applies to specifics of the MOQ.
Best,
Platt
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